Upon approaching this shot, the first thing that obviously needed to be done was to matchmove the shot and get a useable 3D camera for placement of the fort, ships, explosion, etc. The matchmove is somewhat complex due to the sea being unuseable for tracking because of it’s independent motion. Ultimately, SynthEyes made the track surprisingly quick. There’s a slight wobble that I corrected in Nuke. I should note that the original footage is the “Friendship” at sail in Rhode Island; shot by David Bellino and Second Wind Films.
Syntheyes track- Click to play
Maya
The next main element that was necessary for the final shot is the two CG ships that make this a British fleet at war rather than simply a historical vessel out for a sail. Because the final image would be so dark I chose to only render two passes- a beauty pass and an ambient occlusion pass. The lighting was simply two directional lights and an ambient light, set up to match the foreground ship. The shot was rendered in Mental Ray with final gather, using a small Smedge render farm. In order to save time, the rear ship did not use ambient occlusion or final gather, and was rendered at 75% scale.
The lead CG ship in Maya- Click to Enlarge
A sample beauty render- Click to Enlarge
A sample ambient occlusion render- Click to Enlarge
Cinema4D
Another necessary element for any “Star-Spangled Banner” shot is the US flag. I located an image of the actual flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the attack and created an alpha for it’s tears and rips in Photoshop. I then used Cinema4D’s unbelievably fast and simple cloth system to render it flapping dynamicaly in the wind. I probably went overboard with the flapping, but Cinema4D is real-time and so simple that it’s actually fun generating dynamic elements like this.
The cloth flag being simulated in Cinema4D- Click to Enlarge
The flag element as used in the shot- Click to Play
Nuke
The next stop was Nuke to composite the elements together. I imported the SynthEyes camera and used it to position my Fort McHenry matte in the proper location in the harbor. The smoke, explosions, and dust were stock footage either luma keyed in Nuke or blue-screened with Primatte, and available commercially from Final Light and Detonation Films. (I’ve learned that, while I can certainly generate nice explosions, dust, and smoke in Maya or Particular, it’s almost certainly wiser and cheaper to use the real thing- or a professional’s imitation of the real thing! I’ve since bought a lot of footage from these two sources.) The stock effects elements were composited in 3D using the SynthEyes camera. I generated a mask for the ship to place it over top of the 3D elements by using a combination of luma keys and roto. I extracted the bow wave from the real ship using the same technique, then placed it over the Maya ship. The final image was color corrected for morning and some Nuke “godrays” were added over the top.
The Nuke composite for this shot- Click to Enlarge
AfterEffects
The final stop was AfterEffects. In AfterEffects I added the cannonball impact and splash as an afterthought (it could certainly have easily been done in Nuke- I just decided it needed something extra and did it quickly in AfterEffects rather than re-rendering from Nuke.) The main splash itself is another stock effect from Detonation Films. The water droplets on the lens are a simple mask driving some Levels, and emboss, and an adjustment layer that distorts the background image. The camera shake was created using the Wiggler. I also added in the audio in AfterEffects to really make the shot come alive.
The mask that drives the water droplets- Click to Enlage
Conclusion
The final shot- Click to Play
While there’s nothing revolutionary here, I think the final shot came out fairly well and is fun to watch. There’s not a lot of breakdowns like this on the web, so while I didn’t make a tutorial out of it I hope it’s interesting to see what went into the shot, including a look at my Nuke script. It was a really fun shot to work on, and I hope you’ve enjoyed watching it as much as I do!
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